Nowhere
does HIV threaten more than in Africa. In 2001 in South Africa 22% of
the population was infected. This was an opportunity for an entirely
new approach to research funding, such as giving the natural genius of
South Africa's medical researchers its head.

Instead, the South African
Medical Research Council decided to pour funds into an approach which
had been repeatedly tried, and failed, in first world countries, - the
attempt to obtain a vaccine against HIV. The head of the South African
MRC lamented that getting medical researchers to work together was
"like herding cats," but
reported that by use of the financial stick his country was making
progress.

The possibility that the researchers might have their
own ideas about tackling the scourge of AIDS did not appear to have
occurred to him. Perhaps, once again, the Thrasybalus anecdote applies. By
financially decapitating South Africa's genius, the Medical Research
Council, like its equivalent organizations in first world countries, was
revealed as part of the problem, not the solution to the problem.